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An ^tltlteSS in Recognition of 
Six CailttS erected to do Honor to 

Governor HENRY VANE 
Mistress ANNE HUTCHINSON 
Governor JOHN LEVERETT 
Governor SIMON BRADSTREET 
Mistress ANNE BRADSTREET 
Governor JOHN ENDECOTT 

Given in The First Church in Boston on 
Forefathers' Day, December Twenty-first 
Nineteen Hundred and Four 



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An 9ltltlt0SS in Recognition of 
Six %Khltt& erected to do Honor to 

Governor HENRY VANE 
Mistress ANNE HUTCHINSON 
Governor JOHN LEVERETT 
Governor SIMON BRADSTREET 
Mis/ress ANNE BRADSTREET 
Governor JOHN ENDECOTT 



Given in The First Church in Boston on 
Forefathers' Day, December Twenty-first 
Nineteen Hundred and Four 
By James Eells, Minister to the Church 









25 .n-i^^OT 



GEO. H. ELLIS CO., PRINTERS, 272 CONGRESS ST., BOSTON. 




IN the year 1669 there was printed " New 
England's Memorial," by Nathaniel Morton, 
Secretary to the Colony of New Plymouth. From 
that ancient book I quote the following : — 

"In the year 1630 it pleased God of his rich 
grace to Transport into the Bay of the Massachu- 
setts divers honorable Personages, and many 
worthy Christians, whereby the Lord began in a 
manifest manner and way to make known the 
great thoughts which he had of Planting the Gos- 
pel in this remote and barbarous Wilderness, and 
honoring his own Way of Institutional Worship, 
causing such and so many to adhere thereto, and 
fall upon the practice thereof Amongst the rest, 

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a chief one amongst them was that Patern of 
Piety and Justice, Mr. John Winthrop, the first 
Governour of that Jurisdiction, accompanied with 
divers other precious Sons of Zion, which might 
be compared to the most fine gold. Amongst 
whom I might also name that Reverend and 
Worthy man, Mr. John Wilson, eminent for Love 
and Zeal ; he likewise came over this year, and 
bare a great share of the difficulties of these new 
beginnings with great cheerfulness and alacrity of 
spirit. . . . But it pleased God to exercise them 
with much sickness, and being destitute of housing 
and shelter and lying up and down in Booths, 
some of them languished and died ; yea, it pleased 
God to take away amongst the rest, that blessed 
Servant of Christ, Mr. Isaac Johnson with his 
Lady, soon after their arrival, with sundry other 
Precious Saints. This sickness being heavy upon 
them, caused the principal of them to propose to 
the rest to set apart a day to seek the Lord for 

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the aswauging of his displeasure therein, as also 
for direction and guidance in the solemn enterprise 
of entering into Church-fellowship ; which solemn 
day was observed by all. . . . The first that began 
the work of the Lord above mentioned, were their 
honored Governour, Mr. John Winthrop, Mr. 
Johnson afore-named ; that much-honored gentle- 
man Mr. Thomas Dudley, and Mr. John Wilson, 
aforesaid. These four were the first that began 
the honorable Church of Boston, unto whom 
were joined many others." 

These four men first signed the Covenant 
under which this church was gathered on July 
30, 1630. The Covenant is inscribed upon yon- 
der window, and is as follows : — 

" In the name of our Lord Jesus Christy and in 
obedience to his holy will and divine ordinance^ — 

" We, whose names are hereunder written, 
being by His most wise and good providence 

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brought together into this part of America, in the 
Bay of Massachusetts ; and desirous to unite our- 
selves into one Congregation or church under 
the Lord Jesus Christ, our head, in such sort as 
becometh all those whom he hath redeemed and 
sacrificed to himself, — do hereby solemnly and 
religiously (as in his most holy presence) promise 
and bind ourselves to walk in all our ways ac- 
cording to the rule of the gospel, and in all 
sincere conformity to his holy ordinances, and in 
mutual love and respect each to other, so near 
as God shall give us grace.'* 

Underneath it are four tablets erected to the 
memory of these " Founders of this Church," the 
first of which reads : — 



JOHN WINTHROP 

FOR MANY YEARS GOVERNOR 

OF THE MASSACHUSETTS BAY COLONY 

THE CHARTER OF WHICH HE BROUGHT OVER 

IN 1630 

A PURITAN LEADER 

MODERATE AND MAGNANIMOUS 

WHO MADE RELIGIOUS OBLIGATION 

THE SPIRIT OF HIS DAILY LIFE 

AND SPENT HIS STRENGH AND SUBSTANCE 

IN THE CAUSE OF NEW ENGLAND 

BORN 1587 DIED 1649 



THOMAS DUDLEY 

FOR SEVENTEEN YEARS 

GOVERNOR OR DEPUTY GOVERNOR 

OF THE 

MASSACHUSETTS BAY COLONY 

AS GOVERNOR HE SIGNED 

THE CHARTER OF HARVARD COLLEGE 

BORN IN ENGLAND 1 576 

DIED IN ROXBURY 1653 

"a MAN OF APPROVED WISDOM 
AND OF MUCH GOOD SERVICE 
TO THE STATE.** 



ISAAC JOHNSON 

A MAN OF FIDELITY AND PROMISE 

WHOSE EARLY DEATH IN 163O 

FOLLOWING HARD UPON THAT OF HIS WIFE 

THE LADY ARBELLA 

sister to 

The Earl of Lincoln 

cast deep gloom upon the colony 



AMONGST US, HAVING THE BEST ESTATE 
OF ANY, ZEALOUS FOR RELIGION, AND THE 
GREATEST FURTHERER OF THIS PLANTATION.' 



JOHN WILSON 

BORN 1588 DIED 1667 
THE FIRST PASTOR OF THIS CHURCH 

HE FULFILLED 

A MINISTRY OF THIRTY-SEVEN YEARS 

A MAN OF MODEST MIEN 

OF STERN CONVICTIONS 

A DEVOTED FRIEND 

WHOSE SIMPLE PIETY AND AMIABLE SPIRIT 

GREATLY ENDEARED HIM TO 

THE PEOPLE OF HIS PARISH. 



It is good for the community that the names 
of these honored and sturdy citizens should be 
set forth in enduring fashion. It is good for us 
of this church to worship ever in their august and 
silent presence, — 

" Lest we forget, lest we forget." 

On either side of these four are ranged three 
other tablets, and in every instance these memo- 
rials have been erected through the generosity 
and filial interest of descendants from those 
whose names appear. 

The first tablet bears this inscription : — 



SIR HENRY VANE 

THE YOUNGER 

KNT OF RABY CASTLE 

IN THE COUNTY OF DURHAM ENGLAND 

SOMETIME MEMBER OF THIS CHURCH 

BORN 1613 

BEHEADED ON TOWER HILL JUNE I4 1662 

HE CAME TO THIS COLONY 

AND WAS CHOSEN GOVERNOR IN 1636 

UPON HIS RETURN TO ENGLAND IN 1 63 7 

HE BECAME CONSPICUOUS IN THE PUBLIC SERVICE 

A MEMBER OF THE LONG PARLIAMENT 

ASSOCIATED WITH CROMWELL, PYM, HAMPDEN 

HE WAS A FOE TO EVERY TYRANNY 
A LIFELONG CHAMPION OF THE RIGHTS OF MAN. 

"young in years, but in sage COUNSEL OLD." 

THIS TABLET IS ERECTED IN HIS HONOUR BY 

THE RT.-HON. HENRY DE VERE VANE 

LORD BARNARD OF RABY CASTLE I9O4 



When Henry Vane reached this colony, he 
was but twenty-four years of age. His coming 
was greeted with enthusiasm. At once he en- 
tered heart and soul into the affairs of the com- 
monwealth, and at the first election after his 
arrival he was chosen governor. His adminis- 
tration was a stormy one, for it was mainly 
occupied with the controversy over Mistress 
Anne Hutchinson's heresies. His mystic tem- 
perament and liking for theology urged him 
deep into that strife, and allied his sympathies 
with the unfortunate lady who soon after was to 
be banished from the colony. His greater work 
and longer life were spent in England ; and 
Fiske writes of him, "It is pleasant to remember 
that the man who did so much to overthrow the 
tyranny of Strafford, who brought the military 
strength of Scotland to the aid of the hard- 
pressed Parliament, who administered the navy 
with which Blake w^on his astonishing victories, 

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who dared even withstand Cromwell at the 
height of his power when his measures became 
too violent, — it is pleasant to remember that this 
admirable man was once the chief magistrate of 
an American Commonwealth." His career in 
the home land was the enlarging of his efforts 
here, — the establishing of an imperishable free- 
dom, dear alike to English and American 
hearts. It is surely fitting and significant that 
this tablet should be set here by Lord Barnard, 
who inherits the castle to which Henry Vane was 
assigned when he was made a knight of the Eng- 
lish realm. It is in line with that growing ex- 
pression of kinship and sympathy between 
England and America, which is the most 
natural and beautiful and fateful of all inter- 
national movements of the present day. From 
the castle yonder comes to the church here this 
noble gift, at once a token of cordial interest 
and the expression of greater things. 

H 



I have said that during Vane's administration 
occurred the lamentable trial and banishment of 
Anne Hutchinson. The tablet bearing her name 
reads thus : — 

THIS TABLET IS PLACED HERE 
IN HONOR OF 

ANNE HUTCHINSON 

BORN IN LINCOLNSHIRE ENGLAND ABOUT I592 
RECEIVED INTO THE MEMBERSHIP 

OF THIS CHURCH 1634 

BANISHED FROM MASSACHUSETTS 

BY DECREE OF COURT 1 637 

KILLED BY THE INDIANS AT PELHAM, N.Y. 1 643 

A " BREEDER OF HERESIES*' 

" OF READY WIT AND BOLD SPIRIT " 

SHE WAS A PERSUASIVE ADVOCATE OF THE 

RIGHT OF INDEPENDENT JUDGMENT. 



For the strife of which this lady was the storm- 
centre we have small understanding and scarcely 
the vocabulary to-day. It was, in effect, a pro- 
test against the prevalent orthodoxy in matters 
of faith, — a debate which ranged the little com- 
munity and the church into two bitter-voiced 
sides. Vane and Cotton were her advocates ; 
Wilson, Dudley, her opponents. She was a 
gentlewoman of mental ability and great sym- 
pathy. She attended her neighbors in their sick- 
nesses, and eased many a pain-wracked body, 
and tenderly cared for the little children in the 
severe conditions into which they were born. 
Her friends were many, and her influence wide 
in consequence. But, when it came to such a 
pass that soldiers would not go out to fight the 
Indians unless they were led by officers and chap- 
lain who adopted Mistress Hutchinson's theo- 
logical views, the matter became of politically 
vital importance, and she was summoned before 

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the Court. The Court banished her as danger- 
ous to the community, and the record of our 
church bears this entry: "The 22d of the ist 
Month 1638. Anne, the wife of our brother 
Wilham Hutchinson, having on the 15th of this 
month been openly, in the public congregation, 
admonished of sundry errors held by her, was on 
the same 22d day cast out of the church for 
impenitently persisting in a manifest lie, then ex- 
pressed by her in open congregation." And so 
she was banished and excommunicated. She went 
to Rhode Island, and later settled on some land 
which is near what is now Stamford, Connecticut, 
where she was cruelly massacred by the Indians. 
Whatever may have been her " sundry errors " of 
thinking and precept, I am proud to have upon the 
walls of this church which cast her out this lasting 
monument to her spotless, helpful, and sincere life. 
It is a tribute to personal qualities which are always 
so much greater than theological opinions. 

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Another tablet bears this inscription : — 

SIR JOHN LEVERETT 
1616-1679 

ARRIVED AT BOSTON 

SEPTEMBER 4, I 633 

JOINED THE FIRST CHURCH 

JULY 14, 1639 

CAPTAIN IN Cromwell's service 1656 

MAJOR-GENERAL OF THE 

MASSACHUSETTS BAY COLONY 

1663-1673 

GOVERNOR OF THE 

MASSACHUSETTS BAY COLONY 

FROM 1673-1678 

KNIGHTED BY KING CHARLES II 

AUGUST 1676 



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As a boy, he lived in Old Boston, England. 
He was baptized by John Cotton in St. Botolph's 
Church. His father was one who defeated many 
designs to molest Mr. Cotton for non-conformity ; 
and, when Cotton came to this new land, the 
Leveretts came with him. John Leverett, the 
soldier, saw much fighting against the Indians. 
John Leverett, the trusted commissioner of the 
colony, was sent to the settlements of Maine to 
declare them to be under the jurisdiction of 
Massachusetts, and was one of four persons se- 
lected by the General Court to keep the First 
Charter safe and secret during the troublous politi- 
cal times. John Leverett, the governor, was he 
who withstood the insolent Edmund Randolph face 
to face, — answered insolence for insolence, as the 
only language Randolph could be made to under- 
stand, — and by sturdy dignity and the power of a 
righteous cause, both in America and in England, 
accomplished much good service to the State. 

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Side by side are two tablets to Simon Brad 
street and his " dear wife " Anne. 



SIMON BRADSTREET 

ONE OF THE HISTORIC FOUNDERS OF THE 

MASSACHUSETTS BAY COLONY 

"the NESTOR OF NEW ENGLAND*' 

GOVERNOR OF THE COLONY 1679 ^^ 1686 

AND ON THE DOWNFALL OF ANDROS 

AGAIN 1689-1692 

PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED COLONIES 

1653 AND AGAIN 1663 AND 1664 

HE HELD MANY OFFICES OF 

RESPONSIBILITY AND TRUST 

AND WAS THE SEVENTH TO SIGN THE 

COVENANT OF THIS CHURCH. 

BORN AT HORBLING ENGLAND 

MARCH 1603 

DIED AT SALEM MASSACHUSETTS 

MARCH 27 1697. 



Bradstreet was the last survivor of that little 
group which had founded the colony. Six months 
after Leverett, the grand old soldier of the Com- 
monwealth died, Bradstreet was chosen to fill his 
place. At that time he was seventy-six years old, 
and held in peculiar reverence. Although a 
strict Puritan in faith and decidedly opposed to 
all " heresy and schism," he was imbued with a 
spirit of gentle charity and was guided by a some- 
what better religious influence than marked his 
associates. When Anne Hutchinson was ar- 
raigned, Mr. Bradstreet was all for persuasion and 
not for force. He frequently took grounds in 
favor of freedom of speech, and often voted, in 
opposition to the magistrates, against the im- 
posing of fines upon offenders who " spoke words 
in contempt of government." When the witch- 
craft delusion played such havoc with the sanity 
of men's opinions, he preserved a human heart 
and a steady temper. A chronicler of that epi- 



demic mentions, " the few men of understanding, 
judgment and piety, inferior to few if any in 
New England, that do utterly condemn the pro- 
ceedings, and do freely deliver their judgment 
that these methods will utterly ruin and undo 
poor New England " ; and among the first of 
these few men mentioned he sets the name of 
Simon Bradstreet. He lived out a long career 
as judge, legislator, governor, ambassador, and 
royal councillor, dying at last in great honor at 
the age of ninety-four, — the white-haired and 
wise-tongued Nestor of the Puritan common- 
wealth. On his tomb in the ancient burial-place 
in Salem were cut these words : "He was a man 
of deep discernment, whom neither wealth nor 
honor could allure from duty. He poised with 
equal balance the authority of the king and the 
liberty of the people. Sincere in religion and 
pure in his life, he overcame and left the world." 



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ANNE BRADSTREET 
1612-1672 

FAITHFUL DAUGHTER OF 

GOVERNOR THOMAS DUDLEY 

DEVOTED WIFE TO 

GOVERNOR SIMON BRADSTREET 

ANCESTRESS OF MANY ILLUSTRIOUS AMERICANS 



*' MIRROR OF HER AGE ; GLORY OF HER SEX. 



JOHN NORTON 



GENTLEWOMAN, SCHOLAR, PUBLICIST, 

POET 

WITH HER AMERICAN POESY BEGINS. 

"joined TO THE CHURCH IN BOSTON*' 
1630. 



The most of her girlhood was probably spent in 
the castle of the Earl of Lincoln, as her father 
was steward of those estates. And, when at the 
early age of sixteen she married Bradstreet, it was 
the beginning of that pathetic process by which 
many a tender woman's life was lifted from the 
genial soil of England and thrust into the harsher 
surroundings of the New World. Her history is 
one of many a suffering, many a privation, — ac- 
centuated by the scant privileges, the crude, 
shaggy forms of society in the colony. Her 
poetic temperament, which is always sensitive, 
and her innate sympathy with the classic beauty 
and rich associations of English life, received 
many a shock. But she had no complaints to 
make in public, no burdens to add to those which 
her fellows were so bravely carrying. One must 
read between the lines to find the plaintive 
moments of her life. In an autobiographic 
sketch she wrote : " After a short time I changed 

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my condition and was married, and came into 
this country, where I found a new world and 
new manners, at which my heart rose. But, after 
I was convinced it was the way of God, I sub- 
mitted to it, and joined to the church at Boston.** 
She is known in literature as the author of a 
book of poems entitled " The Tenth Muse 
lately sprung up in America," — a book which 
was printed in London a year after the exe- 
cution of Charles I. ; a book stilted in phrase, 
exaggerated in expression, but, while guilty of 
all the literary faults of the period, was never- 
theless full of the spirit and words of genuine 
poetry. In this way, I think, she found relaxa- 
tion from her daily cares, and threw around her 
an horizon wider far than the restrictions and 
cramping demands of family and household. If 
it be true, as Mr. Lowell declares, that " poetry 
frequents and keeps habitable those upper cham- 
bers of the mind that open toward the sun's ris- 

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ing," then surely Mistress Bradstreet rejoiced in 

the 

" light that never was on sea or land, 
The consecration, and the poet's dream." 

One other tablet remains, inscribed 

IN MEMORY OF 

JOHN ENDECOTT 
1588-1665 

SOLDIER, MAGISTRATE, LEGISLATOR 

GOVERNOR OF LONDOn's PLANTATION IN THE 

MASSACHUSETTS BAY IN NEW ENGLAND 

1629 

GOVERNOR OF THE COLONY OF THE 

MASSACHUSETTS BAY 

1644-1645, 1649-165O, 165I-1654 

1655-1665 

DEPUTY GOVERNOR 

164I-1644, 165O-165I, 1654-1655. 

A FOUNDER OF THE COMMONWEALTH 

A PURITAN AMONG PURITANS. 



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" A grave, strong man, who knew no peer 
In the Pilgrim land, where he ruled in fear 
Of God, not man, and for good or ill 
Held his trust with an iron will. 

" He had shorn with his sword the cross from out 
The flag, and cloven the May-pole down, 
Harried the heathen round about, 

And whipped the Quakers from town to town. 
Earnest and honest, a man at need 
To burn like a torch for his own harsh creed. 
He kept with the flaming brand of his zeal 
The gate of the holy commonweal." 

That you recall as the poet Whittier's descrip- 
tion of the governor. Probably no man of all that 
early group has been so written about or has had 
so many harsh criticisms flung at him as Gover- 
nor John Endecott. He was severe, even to the 
point of brutality, in religion. He was impul- 
sive, even to the point of rashness, in poUtics. 

27 



Yet his very firmness and integrity won the con- 
fidence of his contemporaries, as the many 
elections to the highest office within their giving 
witness. " He was a faithful sentinel upon the 
watch-towers of his country's interests, ever 
jealous of her rights, ever zealous for her welfare. 
He fulfilled all the trusts committed to his care 
with an honesty of purpose and a fidelity that 
knew no fear, having for his reward the approval 
of his own strict conscience in a life well and 
usefully spent." The point of view for the proper 
estimating of any character must always be, not 
whether the person meets requirements as you or 
I see them, but whether he meets requirements as 
he sees them. Judged thus. Governor Endecott 
will not be found wanting ; for he followed the dic- 
tate of his own conscience, whatsoever it might 
cost him, whithersoever it might lead him. 
The early years of his life in the colony were 
spent in Salem; but shortly before he was elected 

28 



governor he came to Boston to live, and became 
identified with this church. 

It is not the simple standing in history of these 
men which we admire from a safe distance, not 
merely the memory of a past, however inspiring, 
but the presence of a sense of duty, the presence 
of God, the everlasting presence of the ideal in 
the lives of men. We may deprecate the Puri- 
tan's rigid interpretation of righteousness, but 
that righteousness was the strong, red blood that 
flowed in his brains. We stand aghast at his 
grim notions of what pure and undefiled religion 
should be ; but that religion was his life, and 
we have not yet striven unto blood, and he had. 
His was a time when God's clock marked an 
advance for the sons of men. And when their 
little ships dropped anchor along this coast, it was 
the signal that God was about to speak, in words 
made flesh, some other truth which hitherto men 
had not been able to bear. No spirit less intense, 

29 



no thought of God's direction and care less defi- 
nite and tangible, no enthusiasm less concentrated, 
would have sufficed for the work in hand. If the 
Puritan had a grim religion, he also lived in a 
grim age. If he had a severe holiness, he had to 
face severe demands upon it. If it narrowed life, 
it also condensed life. It laid the foundations of 
this country on a basis more enduring than Plym- 
outh Rock itself. It nerved fainting hearts 
when all else failed ; it gave sinew to morals 
more precious than rubies. Their doctrinal ser- 
mons, their undiluted laws, have passed away with 
their flint-locks, their clothing, their queer houses, 
and their tithing-man. But the things that have 
passed away did not make the Puritan. What 
he meant in all his sternness was God, — God 
intimately in all parts of human life, God the 
blesser of a righteous people, God the King 
eternal, immortal, invisible. So deep ran this 
conviction that any trifling with its sobriety was 

30 



to be put down. There was no respect of persons : 
there were sober searchings of hearts. There was 
an earnest literalism about cutting off the right 
hand if it offended, or the plucking out of the eye 
if it caused to stumble. Say that his life was 
rugged as the mountains, say that it gloried in 
the lighting and the thunder, yet always was it 
spring-fed, and always those springs flowed out in 
resistless search of the great, booming, rushing 
sea of God. 

The harvest ripened by the sun of other days 
we must plant again in the sunshine of our own. 
Already the new day has come. All up and down 
the eastern sky play the promiseful shafts of 
light. The evening time of darkened counsel, of 
doubtful experiment, of incomplete attainment, is 
broken in upon by the dawn of larger things, 
of power, of peace, of glorifying results. And, as 
we clearly see both our privilege and our respon- 
sibility, we shall also see why it is that, though 

31 



JUN 13 1907 



they " obtained a good report through faith, they 
did not receive the promise, God having pro- 
vided some better thing for us, that they without 
us should not be made perfect." 



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LIBRftRY OF CONGRESS 



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